Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Barry Garrett Update - Wed July 9, 11am

So for those of you that haven't heard, let me back up and update you with the fun week we've been having.

Monday morning I woke up at 6am with the worst head-splitting headache of my life. I took some Advil and almost immediately threw it up. Took some Excedrin Migraine and almost immediately threw it up. At this point I have the worst ever headache and I can't stop vomiting.

Alyssa took me to the Care Now clinic where they gave me 2 shots - phenegran for the nausea and something else for the pain. And then they told me to get to the Emergency Room immediately.

So Monday afternoon we check into HEB ER and they load me up with IV fluids and continue phenegran and morphine to keep nausea and headache manageable.

I also had a CTscan and an MRI. The MRI showed a tumor on my pituitary gland which has swollen the gland from the normal size of a pea to 10 times that size. It has also severely stretched the optic nerves.

So Monday night after getting pain and nausea manageable I was given the choice to stay at hospital or go home with oral meds. I chose to go home but I think that was a bad choice, because the oral meds couldn't keep up with the pain.

Tuesday morning we got into the neurosurgeon's office (Dr. Koz) for an evaluation of the MRI. He explained it like this: 1 - The pituitary gland/tumor could be producing a hormone called prolaritin (sp?). If this is the case, the tumor and gland can be handled with medicine. 2 - If that's not the case then we'll have to have surgery to at least remove the tumor and possibly the pituitary gland. 3 - The Healer in His grace and mercy shrinks and destroys the tumor and sends it back to hell where it came from, and the pituitary gland shrinks back to normal size and the optic nerves return to normal size (this is my favorite choice)!!

We left Dr. Koz's office around noon? yesterday and have spent until now in ICU. Great folks taking care of me! Love the morphine to keep my head from exploding. Have also been on a powerful steroid treatment to reduce swelling of mass/gland in brain which has helped reduce the pain!! Thanks to everyone who has visited, called, emailed and prayed!!

We should hear on the lab results of the prolaritin today. And I have a field trip at 3:15pm this afternoon for a visual field test at an ophthalmologist.

Returning from the ophthalmologist, they are trying to move me out of ICU to a private room. Which will be good for a couple of reasons. Visitor hours in ICU are strict, and there's a lot of noise/action in the ICU.